Into the Woods: An SSC Story
Discipline is important.
Geology is always tedious, but on Fridays it’s unbearable. I take meticulous notes, forcing my brain to focus on my notebook and the professor’s monotone.
When the class is finally over, I grab my backpack and cram the notebook inside, not allowing myself a glance at what else is in there. Not allowing myself to think about what’s next.
I think about it anyway.
Behind the labs, there’s a nature trail. I shoulder my backpack and walk the trail briskly. To anyone watching, I’m only a student out for an afternoon stroll.
Exactly 567 steps later (yes, I count them — that’s just the way I am), I turn off onto a small deer trail that ends in a meadow. There, in the green-lit sunlight, I strip off my shoes, my jeans, my tee-shirt and socks. My pale blue panties.
Everything.
I fold everything carefully.
Stones in the grass feel sharp under my feet, but I dance anyway, naked in the clearing under the afternoon sunlight. My dance has to circle the clearing twice before I can open my backpack. Sometimes I can’t help myself and I cheat, peeking inside before my dance, but he always checks and punishes me.
Sometimes, I think he watches.
Sometimes, I know he does.
Finally finished, breathless, I open my backpack and take out the uniform. It’s simple. A stiff-collared white cotton shirt, navy games skirt, white knee socks, and black gym slippers. Navy blue knickers, thick, heavy cotton. Fastening the shirt’s collar makes my knees feel weak. Going from nakedness to my uniform makes me even more aware of the collar, the knickers.
I leave my pack and folded clothes at the edge of the clearing, taking with me only a towel and pocket knife. As I walk this second trail, I’m eager but walk carefully, looking at saplings on both sides of the path before choosing and cutting three supple switches.
Almost there now.
Why there’s a fieldstone wall in the middle of the woods, I can only guess. There’s no other sign of human habitation, but there must have been a farmhouse here long ago. However long it’s been there, the wall is still solid.
I fold my towel in half and lay it across the top of the wall, and then put myself across it, rising onto the very tips of my toes, the shirt collar cutting into the skin at my throat.
I think about him arriving, reading my notebook to find out about my week, and lecturing me about discipline, obedience, and submission. Imagine him slowly folding my skirt onto my back and tugging my knickers down, if I’ve been a bad girl.
I’ve *always* been a bad girl.
I whimper softly as I think of him taking each switch in turn and whistling it through the air, choosing the best. I always pray one will be acceptable. The alternative is unthinkable.
Finally, he’ll lay one hand on my back, and slowly thrash my bottom and legs, each stroke leaving a single red lacy welt, the sting building until I can’t cry hard enough and begin to scream….
o0o
….I’m alone when I stand up and take my towel with me back to the clearing. The uniform and notebook have been returned to my backpack. The shoulder straps feel light as I walk back to the university, counting each step.
567.
I won’t return until next week.
Discipline is important.